JAKARTA - The Latvian government decided to send drunk driver cars to hospitals and the Ukrainian military, when hundreds of vehicles filled the confiscation site, as strict rules seized drunk driver vehicles starting this year.
Seven cars were transported in the middle of a blizzard into a trailer and out of the confiscation site of the country to Ukraine.
Two hundred cars were confiscated from drivers found to have an alcohol content in the blood of more than 0.15 percent in two months in the Baltic country of 1.9 million people.
"Actually it was scary when you realized how many cars the drunk driver was driving," said Reinis Poznaks, founder of an NGO known as Twitter Convoy who had been assigned by the government to send the vehicles to Ukraine.
The two dozen confiscated cars promised by the government to be handed over to it every week to be delivered to Ukraine, will test the limits of its operations, most of which are done voluntarily, Poznaks said.
🇱🇻 🇺🇦 Šodien ceļu uz Ukrainu uzsāka pirmās atomašīnas, kuras turpmāk pa Latvijas ceļiem vairs nestūrēs to bijušie īpašnieki – dzērājšoferi.8 auto šodien nodoti biedrības "Agendum" rokās, kas tos tālāk nogādās tur, kur tie nepieciešami visvairāk. #StandWithUkraine #KopāArUkrainu pic.twitter.com/OQEyHeYCF7
— VID (@vid_gov) March 8, 2023
"No one thought that drunk driving people would drive so many vehicles, so they couldn't sell them as quickly as drunk people. So that's why I came up with the idea - to send them to Ukraine," explained Poznaks.
He laughed when he found a Russian flag pinned in one of the seized vehicles, which was abandoned by the owner.
It is known, Twitter Convoy has delivered about 1,200 vehicles, after announcing a request for donations on Twitter a few days after the Russian invasion began on February 24 last year. The convoy managed to raise 2 million euros (USD 2.1 million) for the purchase of vehicles, renovations and logistics by 2022.
Meanwhile, Latvian Finance Minister Arvil's Aseradens said the government was inspired by the success of the NGO to cancel vehicle auction efforts: "We said, well, you can take those cars... and (Pozanak) said, 'Oh, that's great!"
"We are ready to do everything we can to support Ukrainians," he said.
Last year, Latvian police noted that 4,300 drivers were found driving beyond the limits on Latvian roads last year and were involved in nearly a thousand accidents.
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